Between
coughs and sips of bottled water, a man once known as No. 46288
sat in front of more than 30 schoolchildren and told his story one
last time.

Robert LeRoy couldn't
have a name, he told students Friday at the Einstein Academy in
Elgin, [Il., USA] not during those days at the Bunzlau
concentration camp in Poland. He had to be a number. The guards
made sure of that.

"They beat it into me,"
LeRoy recalled. "You learned to become a number because you
learned to survive."

The children sat silent
as they listened to LeRoy. Friday marked the 60th anniversary of
LeRoy's liberation from Bunzlau, and he wanted to tell one more
group of schoolchildren about past atrocities and the lessons that
could be gleaned.

"Hatred is not part of
your life," said LeRoy, 80. "It should never be part of your
life."

For 30-plus years, LeRoy,
an Elgin resident, has related to schoolchildren his stories of
the Holocaust. But in recent years his health has
deteriorated.

"No more," LeRoy said,
taking a seat after his talk. He said this would be his last
appearance talking about the Holocaust. "My physical strength is
gone, and I have to adjust to it."

LeRoy and his family were
rounded up when the Nazis invaded his hometown of Nyirmada,
Hungary, in 1944. They were first taken to Auschwitz, where LeRoy,
then 19, was selected to go to the Bunzlau work camp.

He watched as his mother,
father and 2-year-old brother were led to a showering area, he
said.

"No one knew it was a gas
chamber," LeRoy said.

LeRoy said he spent
almost a year as a laborer at Bunzlau before the Germans abandoned
the camp and Russian tanks liberated those inside in
1945.

Memories of Auschwitz and
Bunzlau have stayed with LeRoy, who came to America in 1949. He
cries sometimes when he enters a shower, said his wife,
Carol.